Meet Sasi Kondru | President/Founder of Aid4Need

We had the good fortune of connecting with Sasi Kondru and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Sasi, what was your thought process behind starting your own business?
(Sasi, President of Aid4Need) I had volunteered with several other organizations in middle school, having over 300 service hours in one. I was inspired by volunteering with other organizations to create my own student-led nonprofit. By starting my own nonprofit in high school, I wanted to create an organization where students could volunteer, just like I did, and I wanted to make a bigger impact on my community. It took us 6 months and a lot of paperwork to register as a 501(c)(3) organization, and to get started, I asked 3 people to join Aid4Need as officers (Mahika, Kashmine, and Sharanya).

(Mahika, VP of Aid4Need) Although I didn’t start Aid4Need, I joined one of Sasi’s initial chapters at our school, the Fundraising and Charity Club, in my sophomore year of high school. I remember Sasi was always providing members with new and unique volunteer opportunities, so I quickly felt very passionate about the club. From there, I applied for an officer position for the club and later the nonprofit as well and have enjoyed working alongside Sasi and the other officers ever since, continuously expanding our reach and helping with new volunteer opportunities.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
(Sasi) Starting Aid4Need was definitely not easy at the beginning. Initially, not many people were interested in joining and I had to learn how to communicate with adults and coordinate fundraisers and service activities. It took a lot of advertising to get more members to join and eventually we started chapters. We started to grow quite a bit this summer, opening up more chapters and voting in new officers. Soon, I gained enough experience from communicating with many organizations and today we have over 470 members. I spend around 5-7 hours a week on Aid4Need as I have to coordinate with officers and organizations, keep our socials up to date, and make sure everything is running smoothly. I’ve learned many real-world skills from starting Aid4Need, such as how to manage a team, coordinate with other organizations, and how to communicate effectively.

(Mahika) What makes Aid4Need unique is that it is an active nonprofit that is led by the youth and provides various opportunities for the youth to help their communities. Aid4Need doesn’t focus on one specific cause but rather seeks to aid all sorts of causes and bring awareness to their missions as well. Soon, Aid4Need will be approaching its one year anniversary, which is a big accomplishment for the organization. We also currently have 12 chapters across DFW schools and have helped over 20,000 people! We want the world to know that we welcome them with open arms and that the whole concept of Aid4Need is that anyone from anywhere can volunteer anytime that they want. As the VP of Aid4Need, I’m doing the best I can to help make this happen through creating posts/promotional content for social media platforms, helping gain traction, managing initial accounts, providing new ideas and service opportunities for the organization, designing logos, helping with the upcoming blog, and more! I’m incredibly honored to serve as the VP for this organization and will continue to do everything I can to make sure that I nurture our goals and contribute to taking good care of our community and our members.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
(Sasi) There are a lot of things in DFW, and I’m not sure if I’d have time to show them everything I’d like to in just a week! Firstly, there are so many different types of restaurants in the DFW area! A few I would take them to are Velvet Taco, India 101, and Urban Crust! There are so many malls in the DFW area- NorthPark, Grandscapes, Stonebriar, Willow Bend- so I’d definitely take them to one of those. A couple of cool places for them to see would be Reunion Tower and the National Videogame Museum. For little kids, I think that KidZania and Crayon Experience would be 2 great places to visit!

(Mahika) There’s quite a lot to do in DFW! Downtown DFW is a great place to hangout, especially at night. The Reunion Tower and JFK library are also two great sites to visit. Furthermore, Dallas has various cuisines of food. A great Mediterranean restaurant is Ali Baba as it has various foods in its buffet for both vegetarians and non-vegetarians. Other restaurants with yummy food include Chuy’s, Velvet Taco, Mister O1 Extraordinary Pizza, Cheesecake Factory, Eataly, P.F. Chang’s, Windmills, and Mango Leaf. The Boardwalk at Granite Park also has some lovely restaurants and areas to sit. Furthermore, great places to hangout include Legacy West, NorthPark Center, Watters Creek Village, the Stonebriar Mall, the Galleria Mall, the Allen Outlet Mall, and the Dallas Zoo! For younger kids, Medieval Times is also a great event for entertainment and food! For more fun, Top Golf, Sixes Social Cricket, and the Dallas Karting Complex are great places to have competitive fun with others. Overall, there are many places to take a friend to in Dallas, depending where you look!

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
(Sasi and Mahika) We’d love to dedicate our shoutout to all of the other members, officers, and chapter officers who have contributed to making Aid4Need successful. Thank you Sharanya and Kashmine for also being a part of Aid4Need since the beginning, and thank you to all the other officers for all your help in growing Aid4Need! Thank you to all of our volunteers for all of your help! Special shoutout to Hasini Dara for all of her volunteer work with Aid4Need! We’d also like to thank all of the organizations who have welcomed our cause with open arms and have allowed us to help them. We want to recognize all of the hard workers of our community through our organization as well. Again, thank you to all of the youth volunteers who are participating in our activities and all of our supporters who are sharing our cause and helping expand our reach. Without these people, our organization would lack a meaningful impact, so we are so very grateful for them

Website: aid4need.org

Instagram: @aid4need_4

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/95760480/admin/feed/posts/

Other: Email: info@aid4need.org

Image Credits
For the personal photo, Sasi is on the left (pink dress) and Mahika is on the right (white and blue shirt)